Can someone tell me when I can cut back my Pieris (forest flame) the red leaves are now turning pink and will soon be green. The plants are about 4' tall and taking over. I would like to cut them back by about a third to a half.
Many thanks.

7 May, 2012

Answers

We were at Bodnant Gardens the other day and they have pruned some of theirs back to stumps which were re-growing nicely, so I guess you can prune them. Sadly they do not survive here, too much lime mortar in the soil.

You can prune Pieris and quite hard too. I used to prune a couple of customers shrubs every summer, one to tidy, the other to control. And they always grew back to be pruned the following year. But it is advisable to prune it in winter. I know some pieris come with labels of don't prune, but that should have been translated to not necessary unless required.

Actually, I rather disagree with 2ndhand on this - the time to prune your pieris is now, after the flowers are done. If you cut it back by a third, though, be sure to give a good feed of a general purpose fertilizer, something like Growmore raked or turned into the soil at the base.